Nemesis

The smell of rotting flesh greeted her as soon as Fros reached the gravelled parking lot in front of the house. The house itself was locked so Fros began circling it in search of a window accidentally left open. The falling dusk provided her with cover in case anyone happened by and the light drizzle provided her with motivation: the sooner she found the body, the sooner she could go somewhere dry.

It had been raining ever since she’d left the house but Fros had been in no mood to think about the weather and how much she hated this variety. She had been too busy fuming about Peter. She was still too busy to worry about the drizzle now as she turned the corner to the back of the house and failed to see a single open window. The place probably had an alarm system. Jennifer would be careful to not activate it accidentally.

Creeping forward, past a wide set of curtained windows, she reached a pair of French windows. These were cracked open but Fros no longer needed an entry point. She had a perfect view of the inside of the room.

Jennifer Peterson lay face down on the tiled floor of what looked like an interior patio, next to a light-wood armchair with a grey cushion on the seat. The cushion was spattered with dark spots. So were the chair and the matching coffee table. There were dark spots on her blond hair, too, and a dark pool around her head.

Jennifer wore a dark red long-sleeved top. From the waist down, she wore nothing. Her left buttock was as dark red as her top. It was also a lot flatter than the right one. Heaving an exasperated sigh, Fros took out her phone and called the police.

“So you just happened to stop by to check on a former suspect, is that right?”

Fros heaved another sigh. She was getting good at sighing, so good she could do it competitively.

“I stopped by to check on a suspect after I read about an old murder case with a piece missing from the victim and put two and two together.”

“Yes?”

Fros’s foot wanted to stomp the ground but she stopped it. This was an adult conversation – for which Jules would probably want to kill her because Fros hadn’t invited her – and she was an adult woman. Stomping was out of the question.

“William Silverman stole money from his clients and he held three children prisoner in his garden shed. The woman who was killed in Colchester seven years ago was sued by her neighbour for vandalising his car as a revenge for him reporting animal abuse. Apparently, she had a dog and she mistreated it. Oh, and she also ran an illegal brothel with underage girls. Maybe if you take the time to dig a little deeper into Mrs. Peterson’s life, something might pop out.”

“Did you take the time to dig deeper?” the leader of the police gang, a man Fros had already met and instantly disliked, asked her, completely unfazed.

“Not yet, no.”

“Right,” DS Kaminski said. “Well, we did dig deeper when Mrs. Peterson was suspected of being responsible for her husband’s death. There was nothing to suggest anyone might want to take revenge on her. Nothing,” he repeated with a pointed look meant to convince Fros the police had done their job thoroughly.

“How much deeper did you dig?” she said, aware of just how thorough you could be with all the time and case load constraints McKinley had told her about when he’d explained police work. McKinley. She had to try him again. And she had to remove herself from this place that stank of blood and violence, with the bittersweet tang of righteousness now sitting on her nose like an old friend.

Kaminski sighed and then laughed grimly.

“We went all the way back to college. She majored in art history, by the way. We didn’t find anything, except a tendency to date rich men.”

“Then you should’ve gone further.”

“Who would kill someone for something they did as a child?”

Someone who was so certain he or she was doing the right thing they didn’t feel an ounce of fear or guilt. Someone who believed in their mission so fervently they thought they deserved a reward for doing this. And they gave themselves that reward.

“Someone who believes in evil,” she murmured. “Did you find anything about the missing belly in the Silverman case?”

“Only that it weighed about a pound.”

“A pound of flesh.”

Kaminski scoffed, watching the crime scene technicians take pictures, dust surfaces and place evidence markers around the body.

“We talked to a Shakespeare expert, an English professor. She was no help.”

“Depends on how you look at it,” Fros said. In spite of what Tal thought of her, she had read, a lot, when she’d been younger and freer. And when schools had been stricter with their reading requirements.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the story in the “Merchant of Venice” is really unfair to Shylock, isn’t it? If you look at it from his perspective, he’s the one who gets bullied but he’s the bad guy for wanting a pound of flesh as debt collateral from the one who bullied him. I think,” she said slowly, still uncertain if she wanted to share this with what was effectively the competition, not that any of them would get a medal for finding the murderer. “I think the murderer has a very strong sense of justice.”

“A vigilante?”

“Yeah. Something like that.” Only worse because he or she wasn’t fixing one injustice. They were fixing many injustices and there was an endless supply of these.

“Great,” Kaminski said. He smelled of excitement and uncertainty. He wanted to catch the vigilante. But to his credit, he was far from certain he could.

“Look at it this way,” Fros said. “If you catch that guy you’ll be famous and probably promoted.”

“How do you know it’s a guy?”

Fros almost paused.

“Most killers are men, aren’t they?”

Kaminski gave her a long searching look, worrying her for a second he could smell resentment on her.

“Yes,” he said instead. “Yes, they are.”

The smell of curd hit her before Fros opened the door to the Fang in Fang offices next morning although it would have been more accurate to say it was going on noon. She’d had a long night and she was the boss, so she’d slept in. Following the curdly smell led her to Jules’s office, currently occupied by her and Tony Kircher who looked like he hadn’t slept for a month. The bags under his eyes had bags of their own.

“Hey, Tony.”

He turned away from a severely bored Jules who shot her a grateful look.

“Fros, they’re questioning me. They think I knew about those children. I didn’t. I never… This is horrible,” Tony concluded, on the verge of hyperventilation.

“Would you like to come into my office?” Listening to a hysterical man was the last thing Fros wanted to do right now but Jules was on the verge of kicking Tony out and he still had a bill to pay – a fact Jules must have been aware of more acutely than anyone else, which made her behaviour all the more annoying. “I’m sure Jules has bills to pay and things like that.”

Jules treated her to a raised eyebrow that asked Really? so loudly it bounced off the walls.

“Ms… Fros?”

Rio stood at the open door with the office phone in hand.

“What is it, Rio?”

Tony was thanking Jules for listening to him as he stood from his chair.

“You have about a dozen messages,” the boy said awkwardly. “They’re all from the same person. He says his name was Tal. He sounded really urgent.”

“My battery died,” Fros said. “Thanks. I’ll take care of this.”

So Peter had visited Tal, too. There was no other plausible reason why he would call her a dozen times after the way they had parted last time. He’d hardly call to apologise.

“It’s their job to question people close to the victim,” Jules was saying. “Especially if the victim turns out to be a criminal. Don’t worry about the police.”

Cracking the window open was the first thing Fros did when she and Tony entered her office. The second was to plug in her phone.

“What’s bothering you?” she asked once they’d settled around her desk.

“The police,” Tony said with a sigh. The dairy smell had subsided somewhat. This office was cosy, unlike Jules’s efficiency-first lair. “They came home to question me after they arrested Amanda. I had no idea,” he said, leaning in confidentially, his eyes wild with belated shock. “I would never have imagined Will could do anything like this. It was probably Amanda who made him. I didn’t tell this to the police but it must have been her. And now someone has taken revenge on Will.”

“So you think he was murdered because of those children?”

“Don’t you?” Tony erupted, throwing his arms in the air. “Keeping three little kids in a garden shed for months? I would probably want to murder the people who did this, too.”

“You would?” Thirteen missed calls lit up on Fros’s screen as her phone came back to life. She set it on the desk. “Wouldn’t you call the police on him first?”

“Well, I, er, yes. Yes, of course I’d call the police.” The smell of curd intensified again as he leaned even more over her desk, grabbing the edge. That smell would linger long after Tony left. Anxiety had this tendency to stick around forever. “You don’t think I had anything to do with it, do you? Because I didn’t, I really didn’t.”

“I know, Tony. Of course you didn’t.” Yet the question remained why the murderer had not called the police on the Silvermans if he had discovered their garden shed secret. Perhaps he didn’t trust they would do their job. Or perhaps he couldn’t be bothered with the criminal justice system.

“And this on top of what’s happening at work,” Tony continued. “People are leaving in droves. We might have to close if this continues.”

“I’m sorry?” It had to be both. This guy, because it was a guy, killed to dispense justice. So he definitely didn’t believe the police could do their job. And he couldn’t be bothered with them.

“Our clients are leaving us after the papers wrote about what Will was doing. I tried explaining none of them actually incurred any great losses – brilliant of Will, by the way – but some just won’t listen. I don’t blame them, either,” Tony said with a sigh. “I’d leave my accounting firm too, if I heard they stole from their clients.”

“Maybe you should take on a new partner, show your clients you’re not giving up.”

Tony was shaking his head before she was done.

“That’s the last thing I’ll do. For all they know, anyone new could also be an embezzler. No, I’ll have to deal with this on my own. I can’t believe Will had to do this. I still don’t understand why.”

“Maybe he gambled and had debts.” And maybe the murderer hated gambling. The identity of the man who had killed and carved out a piece of flesh from three people tickled her curiosity in a way she couldn’t scratch. Thinking about all this also kept other, more bothersome thoughts at bay.

“That’s impossible, he promised he’d stop when we set up the firm.”

Fros perked up.

“So, he did gamble.”

Tony recoiled.

“A long time ago, in university. But he wasn’t an addict. Just young and stupid, like we all are at that age.”

“Right.”

Fros’s thoughts changed lanes. Kaminski had left her his number. She had asked him for it. They were, after all, both working on the same case whether Kaminski liked it or not and judging by his smell and expression at the Petersons’ house he didn’t particularly like it. But he knew an opportunity when he saw one.

“Look, Tony, here’s what I suggest. Go home and get some rest. Don’t worry about the police. They always question everyone close to the victim in these cases. It’s their job. But it doesn’t mean they really believe it was you. They need evidence for that, okay? So don’t worry.”

Tony nodded almost enthusiastically.

“They wouldn’t find evidence because I didn’t do anything wrong. I’d never steal from clients. Or murder anyone,” he added quickly minutes after he’d told Fros he could murder his partner and friend if he knew what he was up to. The only reason Fros didn’t smile was because of the headache that was hatching from Tony’s body odour.

“I’ll see you around,” she said and stood up with her hand already extended over the desk. Tony took it and shook it with his own clammy limb. “Bye, Tony.”

A few seconds of staring at her phone were enough to make her decision. She picked it up and dialled a number.

“Kaminski.”

“Detective?” The word still sounded ridiculous whenever she said it. It made her feel like a fictional character.

“Ms Kirova.”

“I just had a meeting with Silverman’s partner. You might want to ask Silverman’s wife about his gambling habits. If you haven’t already, that is,” she added, basking in the gratifying rays of magnanimity. It felt good to be good, if only for a second.

Kaminski sighed like a man carrying a burden. They had not found out about Silverman’s gambling habits.

“Would you care to tell me a bit more?”

“Kircher says that Silverman gambled in university. He swears he had stopped when they’d set up their business but I’m not so sure. I just thought I’d share this possible line of inquiry with you.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind of you.”

“If you could let me know what you find out, that would be great.”

Kaminski paused, probably thinking how to tell her to go to hell without sounding ungrateful.

“Of course,” was what he settled for. “But didn’t your investigation end? You were working on the embezzlement, weren’t you?”

“Only until Tony hired us to find out who’d killed his friend and business partner. We’re still on the case, just like you.”

“Right. Great.”

“I can’t force you to share information, detective,” Fros said in her sweetest voice, even though it cost her an aching throat. “We could find it on our own. But it would be quicker for both of us if we helped each other, don’t you think? Combined our resources. Saved some time.” Fros had a reckless father to find and a murderous sister to catch. She couldn’t spend any more time on this case than strictly necessary – and yet the itch that was the idea of a vigilante killer not unlike herself kept wanting to be scratched.

“I’ll call you if we find something,” Kaminski said and hung up. Fros grinned at the wall opposite her. She didn’t gamble but she could bet money that right now Detective Sergeant Kaminski smelled of the deep, pure kind of shame children often experienced when they’d done something inconsiderate. The sweet smell of repentance.

The fleeting bliss of getting her way was promptly shattered by Jules who popped her head in seconds after Tony walked out and made a face.

“Ripe, right?” she said as she slipped inside without waiting for clearance from Fros. “I have all the sympathy in the world for Tony but the man stinks.”

“You can smell him?”

Jules made another face, an incredulous one this time.

“Of course I can smell him. Just because I don’t have your superior olfactory skills doesn’t mean I don’t have a nose.”

True as this was, given the inferiority of the human sense of smell it was as good as absent, Fros thought but did not say. Not to that face.

“Sorry,” she said instead.

“So. Where have you been all day while I’ve been fielding calls from clients who wanted to speak to the owner?”

“What did they want?” Fros frowned and took her feet off the desk. It was unlikely the world would throw more problems in her face right now but you never knew with the world.

“Well, let’s see,” Jules said and settled into the visitor chair. “One man wanted us to investigate his wife who, it turns out, left him two weeks ago but he has a hard time believing she did it of her own free will. A lady wants us to find her cat. Yes, a cat, apparently from a very expensive breed so the owner suspects it was kidnapped for ransom. No ransom demands yet. How do you feel about cats, by the way?”

“What?”

“A Savannah. I did some research, it’s an insanely expensive breed. Why would you pay thousands of pounds for a cat?”

A man who didn’t believe his wife had left him because she wanted to. A woman, Amanda, who didn’t believe there was anything wrong with keeping children in a garden shed. A man who probably saw nothing wrong with that, either, and who helped himself to clients’ money on a regular basis. And Jennifer Peterson, who probably believed she had earned the right to her husband’s money by sharing his life and didn’t want to wait until cancer finished its job.

Jules’s voice buzzed in her ears but the complete lack of remorse she had seen on Amanda Silverman’s face and smelled on her skin felt more important than whatever Jules was saying. Serial killers didn’t pick their victims at random. They followed a pattern. That was one of the things she remembered from the books McKinley had made her read. McKinley who had disappeared without saying a word about what he was doing and who could be in danger from another serial killer, although calling Peter a serial killer was perhaps pushing it a bit. He did not kill in a pattern and he didn’t do it because some sick instinct compelled him.

“Fros!”

“What?”

“Where are you? Because you’re definitely not here.”

“I was thinking about the Shylock case. I’m afraid Kaminski also made the connection, so I couldn’t wow him with our pound of flesh revelation.”

“What? How? Why? When?”

“And where,” Fros said. “Jennifer Peterson’s dead. I found her body at her house and called the police. Her left buttock was cut out.”

Jules’s eyes widened and bulged a little, her mouth opening and closing like the mouth of a fish trying to go mammal. Her smell took on a worried hue. Jules was probably thinking that no one was safe with a mad justice warrior on the prowl.

Fros let her process the information and picked up her phone. On cue, it started ringing. The name on the screen weighed on Fros’s stomach like a lead ball.

“Hello, Sylvia,” she said with a hollow, distant voice.

“He’s dead,” Sylvia said between two sobs. “Charles is dead. They said it was a heart attack.”

Jules was saying something but Fros couldn’t hear it. Someone was opening the door and rushing in – Tal – with Rio trailing him and trying to grab his arm. Both were speaking but Fros couldn’t hear it. All she could hear was a faint but incessant buzzing while Sylvia’s words played out again and again in her head.

“He’s dead,” she said, trying the words on for size and reality. They were bursting with it. The buzzing stopped and a wall of noise rose around her for a second. “McKinley’s dead.”